Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a touch panel. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a conductive film of a touch panel and a method of manufacturing the same.
Description of the Related Art
Touch panel devices are widely used in day to day life. A touch panel is typically integrated with a display panel, wherein a user can control an electronic device to execute a corresponding command by touching the display panel. At present, a conductive film that is typically used for a touch panel is an indium tin oxide (short for ITO) film, which can be formed on a transparent insulating substrate such as glass plate or polyethylene terephthalate (short for PET) plate.
With reference to FIG. 1A, FIG. 1B, and FIG. 1C, FIG. 1A is a stereogram of a conductive film of a traditional touch panel, FIG. 1B is a plan view of a conductive film of a traditional touch panel, and FIG. 1C is a section view of a conductive film of a traditional touch panel along a section line AA. As shown in FIG. 1A, FIG. 1B and FIG. 1C, a conductive film 11 is overlaid on a substrate 12 before patterning is conducted based on the designed electrode patterns. Since material of the conductive film 11, which comprises of ITO and like materials, absorbs light, light transmittance of a traditional touch panel formed by overall overlaying the conductive film 11 is poor. At present, conductive films can also be formed of conductive polymers, carbon nanotubes (CNT in short), or Ag nanowires. The conductive polymers, carbon nanotubes, or Ag nanowires and the like materials have stronger absorption rate and lower transmittance rate. Therefore, light transmittance of touch panels having conductive films that are made of the above mentioned materials is dramatically reduced.
In the current technology, a conductive film formed of ITO can be hollowed out by a common patterning process to increase light transmittance thereof. However, a conductive film formed of conductive polymer is hard to apply with the common patterning process because of the property of the conductive polymer. In addition, the above method adds an additional patterning process such that the manufacturing cost of the touch panel is increased. Accordingly, providing a conductive film of a touch panel having high light transmittance and a simple method of manufacturing the conductive film of the touch panel becomes a technical difficulty for those skilled in the art to solve.